


It Started Out With a Case (How Did it End Up Like This?)

by Impossibly_Izzy



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Gay Bar, Getting Together, It's like Johnny and Dora but with a different pairing, M/M, Pining, Undercover as a Couple, set in season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-10-24 11:40:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17703644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Impossibly_Izzy/pseuds/Impossibly_Izzy
Summary: Perhaps it was all the support Jake had given him through his relationship, then engagement, and then breakup with Vivian. Maybe it was all the time Charles had spent thinking about Jake and waiting for him to come back from his undercover mission. Or maybe a seed of it had been there the whole time, growing over the years they had spent as co-workers and friends.Whatever it was, Charles was hopelessly infatuated with Jake.





	It Started Out With a Case (How Did it End Up Like This?)

Everyone in this precinct was far too attractive. Well, except for Terry, but it would have been unfair for Charles not to include him.

Obviously, there was Rosa, who Charles had desperately pined after for months before facing a series of crushing rejections. His passionate and yet fraught and brief relationship with Vivian had helped him to get over that, but once Vivian was no longer in the picture Charles found someone else to desperately pine over. Desperate pining was kind of Charles’ _thing_.

He didn’t know what had started it. Perhaps it was all the support Jake had given him through his relationship, then engagement, and then breakup with Vivian. Maybe it was all the time Charles had spent thinking about Jake and waiting for him to come back from his undercover mission. Or maybe a seed of it had been there the whole time, growing over the years they had spent as co-workers and friends.

Whatever it was, Charles was hopelessly infatuated with Jake.

It took so much effort not to get distracted every time Charles looked up from his computer, or every time Jake walked past his desk on the way to the kitchen. Out in the field it was okay, when he had the adrenaline of the situation to focus on, but in the office it was too easy to glance across the room and watch Jake laugh at something as he sat with his feet up on his desk.

‘Hey, man,’ Jake said one day, when he caught Charles absent-mindedly gazing at him across the break room. ‘You okay?’

Charles looked down at the croque monsieur he’d been eating, and then back up at Jake’s tousled hair and bemused expression.

‘I was just thinking about the rising prices of gruyere,’ he said, hastily. ‘You know how it is.’

He was determined not to let this crush get out of hand. Charles was all too aware of his romantic track-record, and he didn’t want to scare Jake off, or end up living in his basement like he had with his ex-wife. He wanted them to stay as they were: as best friends.

He just wished he could convince his mind that that’s what he wanted, that he could convince himself that he didn’t want any more than that. That he didn’t want to know what it felt like to hold Jake’s hand, to kiss him, to run his hands through Jake’s curly hair. This whole situation was hopeless.

The next day, in the briefing room, Jake gave everyone the run-down on an identity thief called Mason Gaines that he’d been tracking down. He suspected that Gaines was going to hand off the laptop containing the stolen information to a byer that evening, and wanted to stake him out and wait for the hand-off.

‘Take Boyle with you,’ said Holt.

Charles was excited at the prospect of a stakeout with Jake, he just hoped he wouldn’t let himself get distracted. Or do anything weird that might affect their friendship.

That night, they sat side by side in an unmarked car, watching Gaines on the other side of the street. He was lurking outside a bar, a briefcase clutched in his hands.

‘He’s going into that bar,’ Charles noticed.

‘Let’s follow him,’ said Jake.

They got out of the car and raced around to the side of the building, where Charles tried to peer through the window to see if he could spot Gaines. What he spotted instead was… rainbows. Several rainbow flags adorned the walls, and once he’d registered them it only took a moment for Charles to take in the bar’s leather-clad, all-male clientele.

‘Jake!’ he hissed. ‘This is a gay bar.’

‘Perfect,’ said Jake. ‘That’s our cover. Quick – code names. I’m… Johnny Lorenzo, I’m a car salesman from – it doesn’t matter, let’s go.’

And, before Charles could register what was happening, Jake was taking him by the hand and dragging him towards the entrance to the bar. With his hand was caught in the warm grasp of Jake’s hand, Charles struggled to focus his mind on the job they were supposed to be doing.

Jake was chatting to the guy on the door. ‘The name’s Johnny Lorenzo,’ he was saying. ‘My lover and I are visiting from Toledo, Ohio, and I wanted to show…’ he looked at Charles expectantly.

‘Oh,’ said Charles. ‘Clive. Clive Bixby.’

‘I wanted to show _Clive_ this fine establishment,’ Jake finished.

The doorman looked unimpressed. Charles was still thinking about Jake saying _my lover._ But then they were in the bar, and Jake dropped Charles’ hand once they had secured a table with a good view of Gaines. Charles immediately missed it, wanted to feel that warmth again, wanted to know what the rest of Jake’s body felt like, but he forced himself to focus on the situation at hand.

‘Sitting by himself,’ he noted.

‘Mind if we join you?’ said a voice to their left.

Oh, crap. Two men were standing beside their table, eyeing the two free chairs.

‘Sure!’ said Jake, with a forced-looking grin.

‘Hi,’ said one of the guys, sliding into a seat. ‘I’m Marco, this is my partner David.’

Jake’s eyes darted to Gaines on the other side of the bar, even as he was introducing them as Johnny and Clive. ‘We are also… partners,’ he said. And that wasn’t even a lie, of course – they were partners on this case – but it still made Charles’s heart flutter.

‘We’re from Ohio,’ he said, trying to cover his awkwardness with awkwardness of a different kind.

‘Ah,’ said David. ‘So are you enjoying the city?’

Charles launched into a monologue about food, trying to keep Gaines in his field of vision.

‘Yep, we both care a lot about the mouthfeel of pizza,’ said Jake. ‘So, how did you two meet?’

‘We go to the same gym,’ said Marco. ‘What about you two?’

‘We’re second cousins,’ Charles blurted out, at the same time that Jake said, ‘We work together.’

Marco and David gave them identical perplexed looks.

‘We didn’t know we were related,’ Charles said, hastily. ‘We only found out after we started dating. After we met working together. At the car dealership.’

On the other side of the bar, Gaines got to his feet. He held his briefcase carefully in front of him, glancing around the room as he walked towards a swing door at the back.

‘Uh, we have to go,’ said Jake, jumping to his feet.

‘Nice to meet you two!’ said Charles, following his lead.

They strode across the bar, and Charles pushed through the swing door, which lead to a fluorescent-lit breezeblock corridor. On one side was a door to the bathrooms, on the other one marked _staff only._ He could see Gaines at the other end, standing in a shadowy doorway.

Charles edged forwards, Jake following closely. Gaines was talking in a hushed voice to someone out of sight – this could be it. They were meters away from him, still half-hidden by the shadowy edges of the corridor. Charles stopped moving, causing Jake to bump into him from behind. Charles drew in an audible breath at the contact, just loud enough that it made Gaines turn around.

He looked up at them, his brow furrowed. Crap, crap, _crap_.

There was a split second where Charles was frozen, desperately trying to think of an excuse or a diversion, and then Jake was pulling him around and into a kiss. And if it had been hard to focus before it was impossible now, with Jake’s mouth hot and bruising against his own. Charles closed his eyes, melted into it, felt nothing but Jake’s lips on his and Jake’s hand on his back.

And then Jake was letting go of him as abruptly as he had pulled him in, and was saying, ‘Damnit, he’s gone. That way!’

Jake marched down the corridor, and Charles had to hurry to catch up, still reeling from what had just happened. He followed Jake through a fire exit at the end of the corridor, out into the night air. He could see Gaines a little way off, standing in the shadows.

Jake leant against the brick wall, keeping his eyes on Gaines. ‘Sorry about that,’ he said. ‘It was all I could think of that wouldn’t blow our cover.’

‘It’s fine,’ said Charles. ‘Yeah, totally normal. Good thinking.’ He internally cringed at himself. Get it together, Charles. ‘Hey, we’re best buds. We can do stuff like that for work, it’s no big deal.’

‘Cool,’ said Jake. ‘Yeah, coolcoolcoolcool.’

And then Gaines looked directly at them.

‘Crap,’ said Charles. He looked up at Jake and, wishing that this could have happened under different circumstances, grabbed the lapels of his jacket and pulled him into another kiss.

The second kiss lasted longer than the first, and this time Jake’s mouth was open against Charles’. And he wished that he could savour this moment forever, but he forced himself to keep his eyes open, to watch Gaines.

Another man approached Gaines – their byer, finally. Charles pushed Jake away from him, grabbed his gun from under his jacket.

‘NYPD, freeze!’ he yelled, his heart still pounding and his lips still tingling from the kiss.

Gaines dropped the briefcase he was holding, as both he and the other man raised their hands.

‘We are _police co-workers_ ,’ Jake added.

They took Gaines and the byer into the precinct. Since the night shift team had taken over the desks, Charles sat in the break room to fill out the arrest paperwork. It was hard to focus, though, when he kept remembering how it felt to kiss Jake. Kept remembering Jake’s open mouth, his hand grabbing the back of Charles’ jacket. Even under circumstances that were so far from ideal, it had been better than Charles could have imagined.

By the time he finished the paperwork, it was approaching ten o’clock, and Charles suspected that Jake might have gone home. Nevertheless, he went looking for him, hoping he could get Jake’s signature and have everything finished before he left.

He checked the kitchen, the lockers, and eventually the evidence lock-up, where he found Jake looking at his phone as he leant against a filing cabinet.

‘Hey,’ said Jake, sliding his phone into his pocket. ‘Do you want to talk about what happened?’

‘What do you mean?’ said Charles, his heart fluttering with hope.

‘You know,’ said Jake. ‘The kissing thing.’

Charles shrugged, willing himself to act normal. ‘I was just keeping up the cover.’

‘No, I know,’ said Jake. ‘Smart move. It distracted him for long enough for the byer to get there. But the thing is, it, ah…’ Jake trailed off, and then licked his lips in a way that might be nervous, but was definitely distracting. ‘What you said, about it not being a big deal…’

If Charles’ heart had been fluttering before, it was full-on pounding now. Charles’ heart was a thing quick to hope, easy to disappoint. It was often broken, but ceaselessly optimistic.

Jake’s eyes locked on Charles’. ‘I think I kind of wanted it to be a big deal.’

‘Me too,’ said Charles.

And then Jake took Charles’s face in his hands and brought him into a kiss. And this time there were no distractions, no witnesses, no furtive open eyes. There was just Jake’s hands, and his lips, and his ragged breaths. And Charles let the paperwork drop from his hand so that he could fist it in the back of Jake’s shirt and hold him close.

Eventually it was Jake who broke the kiss, but he didn’t move away. He was close enough that Charles could feel his breath on his face as Jake played with his tie.

‘That was definitely a big deal,’ said Charles, his voice a breathless whisper.

‘Sure was,’ said Jake. ‘I don’t even know how long I’ve wanted this for.’

‘Me neither,’ said Charles, and pushed himself up on his tiptoes to press his lips to Jake’s again.

He got lost in the kiss, in Jake. And then Jake pushed him up against a filing cabinet, and their kisses becoming more urgent, more chaotic. Charles slid his hand down Jake’s back onto his ass, and Jake responded with a soft moan and kisses to Charles’s neck. It was everything Charles had imagined and more.

They only broke apart when they heard the door of the evidence lock-up opening. Charles hastily pulled away, attempted to straighten his clothes and smooth his hair as a uniformed officer looked around for something, oblivious to the two of them.

Charles picked up the long-discarded arrest paperwork from the floor. ‘Can you sign this?’ he said.

‘Sure,’ said Jake, trying not to laugh.

They went back to the break room, where Jake scrawled his signature on the paperwork. Charles looked at the time – it was almost midnight.

‘Hey,’ said Jake, when they were in the elevator together. ‘Do you wanna, like, go on a date? Would that be weird?’

‘No,’ said Charles. ‘I think it would be excellent.’

They kissed again, soft and chaste.

‘Tomorrow?’ said Charles.

‘Tomorrow,’ said Jake with a laugh. ‘After work. You can take me to whichever fancy-pants restaurant you want, and we’ll eat sheep’s intestines or whatever it is foodies are into.’

‘We can do something that’s more your thing,’ offered Charles.

Jake smirked at him. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll plan the second date.’

Charles couldn’t stop himself from beaming.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic happened because I noticed a gap in the fanfic market when it came to Jake/Charles stories. I'm still a die-hard Peraltiago shipper (see what I did there? XP ) but it's fun to write about some different pairings. If you have any Jake/Charles prompts (or other prompts) you can send them to me @impossiblyizzy on tumblr.  
> Also, Charles' undercover name is a reference to Modern Family, because of course.  
> Thanks for reading, I hope you liked it!  
> Izzy


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